There is no doubt Canada’s high immigration rates have a major impact on housing affordability in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, according to a new study.

“First and foremost, immigration policy is, essentially, also a form of housing policy,” University of B.C. geographer Daniel Hiebert says in a comprehensive paper published in the winter edition of the Canadian Journal of Urban Research.

“Metropolitan housing in Canada would, very likely, look totally different if the scale of immigration were to change dramatically in either direction. The recent decision to raise permanent immigration admission levels from approximately 270,000 in 2015 to 340,000 in 2020 will surely have a significant impact,” Hiebert said.

Most immigrants show greater determination than Canadian-born citizens to buy housing in Canada’s three major cities, said Hiebert, who also studied buying and renting patterns along ethnic lines.

The elevated home-ownership rate among ethnic Chinese immigrants in the expensive cities of Vancouver and Toronto is “striking,” Hiebert said.

“The rate of home ownership among individuals declaring Chinese origins is exceptionally high for newcomers: Over seven in 10 of those who arrived in Canada between 2006 and 2011 reside in households that own a home,” he said.

The discovery that most new Chinese immigrants can afford to buy housing within a few years of arriving in Canada — at a rate higher than the overall Vancouver average of 69 per cent — supports numerous reports that have indicated many new immigrants from East Asia are making their purchases with large amounts of capital earned in their homelands.

Recent Chinese immigrants to Toronto and Vancouver have a home-ownership rate of nearly 73 per cent “and a propensity to dedicate a very high portion of their income to housing. Given the scale of immigration of individuals from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to Vancouver, it is likely that this group is having an impact on the metropolitan housing market as a whole.”

The peer-reviewed study by Hiebert, who frequently advises the federal government, enhances earlier research by UBC geographer David Ley, as well as the Conference Board of Canada, that has shown a strong correlation between rapid immigration and pricey housing in Metro Vancouver and Toronto.

Hiebert’s analysis of decades of Statistics Canada data confirmed two contrasting narratives about immigrants and housing — that well-off immigrants are increasing housing prices in Canada’s major cities, at the same time lower-income immigrants are struggling to pay for shelter.

The trend that sees most immigrants moving rapidly into home ownership “undoubtedly has had an impact on the escalation in the price of housing in Toronto and Vancouver and has brought a sense of vibrancy to those markets,” Hiebert said.

“At the same time, though, hundreds of thousands of immigrants and members of visible-minority groups struggle to meet their housing payments or to pay their rent.”

One result Hiebert found especially surprising is that refugees who had been in the country more than two decades prior to 2011 have a home ownership rate that is generally the same or higher than average. “The majority of refugees are able to thrive in even the most expensive housing markets of the country.”

Broadly speaking, however, Hiebert’s research magnifies ongoing anxiety about rising housing costs for residents of Metro Vancouver, which Demographia ranks among the three most unaffordable cities out of more than 400 surveyed in Europe, North America and Asia.

Since Metro Vancouver has the most expensive housing in Canada, Hiebert said “it is not surprising that individuals in Metro Vancouver are under the most pressure in the housing market, with three in 10 spending more than 30 per cent of their gross income on shelter (followed by Toronto at 27.6 per cent and Montreal at 21.8 per cent.)”

When analyzing buying trends by ethnicity, Hiebert found that Caucasians in Metro Vancouver had an average home ownership rate of 67 per cent, which is lower than the visible-minority ownership rate of 72 per cent.

The city’s two largest visible-minority groups are the most likely to own homes in Metro Vancouver and Toronto.

More than 81 per cent of ethnic Chinese in Metro Vancouver, a total of 233,000 adults, live in owned homes. The proportion for South Asians is 75 per cent, with more than 121,000 South Asians over age 18 living in owned households.

Filipinos and South Koreans in Vancouver had modest home ownership rates of 61 per cent, while Latin Americans and blacks were at 46 per cent. Arabs, a small group, were lowest at 37 per cent.

The groups facing the most financial difficulties in securing housing in Canada’s three major cities are Koreans, West Asians (mostly Iranians) and Arabs, many of whom are in “precarious” rental situations.

Meanwhile, Hiebert said the “visible minority group with the least financial pressure, Filipinos, is not especially prone to home ownership.”

One of the recommendations Hiebert makes is that federal and provincial governments “expand the stock of subsidized housing … to support the process of newcomer integration.”

Lol it took such a in-depth study to observe the obvious? If it was cheap credit and low interest rates / speculation that caused the hosing price increase you would have seen bubbles formed all across Canada. The interest rate is set federally and the money supply can flow freely across the provinces. But you need to look at the demographics.

Everyone thinks that all immigrants are just un educated rich corrupt Chinese business men here to launder their money. Though I don’t deny there is cases exist. The immigration process to Canada is actually quite rigorous. Post secondary education, professional work experience and medical screening are just some of the hurdles one must comply with to come to Canada.

To help make sense of the current housing prices you need to understand Asian culture and mentality. Look at picture I attached from stats-can.

Bitcoin is a bubble, and the recent 20% correction already showed that. You can get in cheap and speculate. You can’t do that with Vancouver real estate. You can’t show up with zero down and gamble.

I don’t know what will happen in the future, it may go up or it may go down.

All I can say is the real losers are the people who held out from buying because they thought they were so smart to try and time the market.

This is called the dead zone now, the market is moving sideways... not going up or down, a state of limbo. People who bought can enjoy their homes and pay down their mortgage. Renters are stressing out with no certainty... its been 10 years since 2008... time in life that has been wasted not building equity or moving forward in life.

The majority of the puzzle has to do with the class of immigrants coming here and their ability to circumvent our laws.

Bitcoin is here to stay - those that think otherwise will miss an opportunity as big as buying Vancouver RE in 2005. And probably be crying bubble the entire time.

Wasn’t ETB2 the one insisting that stocks are a bubble and going to crash - I get an update from Bloomberg every week or so telling me stocks are at all time high. My thinking is ETB2 closes their eyes, throws a dart and then won’t shut up about the one that hit the board while not noticing the 4 darts putting holes in the wood panelling behind the board

The majority of the puzzle has to do with the class of immigrants coming here and their ability to circumvent our laws.

Bitcoin is here to stay - those that think otherwise will miss an opportunity as big as buying Vancouver RE in 2005. And probably be crying bubble the entire time.

Wasn’t ETB2 the one insisting that stocks are a bubble and going to crash - I get an update from Bloomberg every week or so telling me stocks are at all time high. My thinking is ETB2 closes their eyes, throws a dart and then won’t shut up about the one that hit the board while not noticing the 4 darts putting holes in the wood panelling behind the board

Bitcoin uses block chain technology, bitcoin just happens to be the most popular "brand" of crypto currency. There are hundreds of them, none of them have any official backing other then investor confidence. http://fortune.com/2017/12/28/ripple-price-bitcoin/
Korea already taking steps to ban exchanges... I always believed that Bitcoin will be crushed not by the bubble bursting but regulation from the government. Why would uncle Sam let people get away with all this money circulation without getting their %. Probably how the whole bitcoin craze gets fizzled out is US and A will come in outlaw all crypto currencies and use the block chain and issue their own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act - In 1934 Franklin D. Roosevelt outlawed all gold in possession by private citizens and the treasury took all of it.
Not hard to believe the same thing can happen to bitcoin.
BTW though I don't believe the long term existence of bitcoin (not block chain) savvy investors have made a nice return. You gamble big, you win big. Cudos to investors who saw bitcoin as a investment. I've been tracking it since it was $400 and I can say I missed out.

No man, immigration is 90% of the puzzle.
That's why I'm confident there can be no sustained downturn in the Vacouver and Toronto markets.
We are the 2 top destinations for over 300,000 immigrants per year.
If immigration policy changes then I'll change my position.

Wow you guys are so smart with your investments, I especially love the risk management!
All this is hindsight and speculation on the reason behind the price movement.
To sum up the driving force into 1 variable such as immigration is grossly oversimplified. Everyone is a genius in these forums lol.
By the way bitcoin is going through a correction or what you may call consolidation.t This happens after every big price move.

Wow you guys are so smart with your investments, I especially love the risk management!
All this is hindsight and speculation on the reason behind the price movement.
To sum up the driving force into 1 variable such as immigration is grossly oversimplified. Everyone is a genius in these forums lol.
By the way bitcoin is going through a correction or what you may call consolidation.t This happens after every big price move.

Wow you guys are so smart with your investments, I especially love the risk management!
All this is hindsight and speculation on the reason behind the price movement.
To sum up the driving force into 1 variable such as immigration is grossly oversimplified. Everyone is a genius in these forums lol.
By the way bitcoin is going through a correction or what you may call consolidation.t This happens after every big price move.

Lol correction / consolidation ? Might wanna check the chart again

It's still a bullish chart from a long term perspective, as mentioned, corrections like these are normal in highly volatile markets like bitcoin.
I'm surprised you're not used to this as you seem to know a lot about everything.
This is extremely common for new sectors. Just look at the MJ market, this is nothing compared to MJ. But MJ is still extremely bullish.

Lets backtrack here, I claimed that Bitcoin was a bubble, you said that it was market consolidation and a correction. I rebutted with “check the chart again”

If what happened to Bitcoin in the past few months is not considered a bubble... well then I guess you believe the earth is flat.

Sounds like you got tangled up in Bitcoin and now trying to defend your position.

Bitcoin is suppose to be a alternative to cash, but that proved to fail. High transaction cost, long processing times. All people are using Bitcoin now is speculation. Traditional stocks mike MJ actually produce something.

And what chart on earth are you using to indicate that Bitcoin is long term bullish, I would love to take a look at your technical analysis, because every indication points to a downward trend. Applying Fibonacci retrenchment already blew by all 3 marks. So I guess long term bullish means you’re praying in your gut.

There are thousands of crypto currencies in circulation. Who decided that Bitcoin is the official one.

Sure I'll entertain this a bit, let's back track.You said BTC is in a bubble, and I did not dispute that. Anything that goes Parabolic is in a bubble and will have a HIGH PROBABILITY of a sharp correction.
Deep corrections happen all the time in new sectors, including BTC. You can find similarities in the MJ sector which is a new market like the BTC. Deep pullbacks (deep corrections) but markets will impulse and make new highs after the correction.
- I'll show you some parallels with the MJ Market. Look at the deep pullback below with WEED.TO last year's pullback from 18 dollars to 8 dollars. It bubble up and the bubble corrected.
Look at it now, just last month it hit 44 dollars. It bubbled up again in a much larger magnitude and it corrected from 44 to 20.
Bubbles happen in new sectors and corrections follow.

This is conservative for a marijuana stock by the way. You can look at all the others and you will observe higher proportional gains and more extreme corrections.
I will say it one more time deep corrections are normal for new sectors. That is to say THERE IS A HIGH PROBABILITY OF DEEP PULLBACKS IN NEW MARKET SECTORS THAT HAVE GONE PARABOLIC. Notice I'm using the words "probability" and "normal". As in I can never be 100% sure, but the price movement is within the probabilistic norm of new sectors.

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I can honestly say I'm not in BTC, I don't even have an account verification has been pending for a month.
I'm waiting for the flag to break on the up side before I go in and you can bet I will have stops because I never enter a trade without quantifying the risk. (Trading 101 stuff)
When I say flag, i mean the structure in the picture below.The reason being it has a higher probability of continuing the up trade once it breaks this structure.

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You mentioned Fib retracement.. You should know that Fibonacci as in Fibonacci Retracement has no statistical edge. What has a statistical edge are pullbacks of 50% to 60% magnitude are more likely than other pullbacks.I don't quite understand what you mean by 3 marks, but even if you apply Fib retracement to BTCUSD you still see a normal retracement.

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For TA to be implemented properly must be quantified statistically and statistics deal with probabilities.
If you understand probabilities then you know there is no such thing as a guaranteed trade and you wouldn't be so caught up in being right or wrong with sematics.

You can ONLY make money if you have an edge. ie (Probability of Winning * Reward) - ( (1 - Probability of Winning) x Risk) > 0

Let me explain this to you further.
If your method has a 50% chance of winning, your Reward/Risk ratio MUST to be greater than 1 to make money over the long run.
If your method only has a 25% chance of winning, if you're reward/risk ratio MUST be greater than 3 to make money over the long run.
conversely even if your method has a 90% chance of winning you will LOSE money if your reward/risk ratio is less than 0.11

This shows that you do not need to be right more than half the time to make money, MORE IMPORTANTLY just because one is right 90% of the time, it does not mean they will make money.
Trading or using TA is not about being right or wrong. It's about taking calculated risks and knowing that it will work at times and at times it will not - rules of probability.

I don't believe you know how to trade or use TA the way it's intended. You're more concerned about being right or proving a point than actually having a method with a STATISTICAL edge and following it. It's like you are trying really hard to be right and sound smart, you just need to relax and understand that nothing is 100%, we live in a world of probabilities and markets are no different. If you don't understand that then you don't understand TA at a fundamental level.

You also speak of Goldman Sachs and link these news like it's an indicator of where the market is going. You should know better to not follow recommendations and news for investing.
You will be more successful fading news than following it like sheep.

How come none of your charts have high/low open close prices, do you just look at the close price? While the close is important, it's only 25% of the information. You really need the open/close high and low prices to even start TA.

Given your posts has the following.
1. Overly concerned with being right on prognostication and semantics
2. Charts with no OLHC information
3. Talks of being stuck in a position (this only comes from investors and traders that don't quantify risk before going in trades)
4. Linking of News for market direction input (this is the worst way of using news in the market by the way)
5. Stating Fib replacements out of context

There is a high probability that you do not know how to trade or use TA. You are a long term investor and you should stick with that until you have a system with a statistical edge.

Immigration is not the only factor in Vancouver's fantastic real estate market. The main factor is that it is awash in illicit capital. Immigration is great for Canada and educated and rich immigrants are the best kind. Criminals looking to wash and hide money here is the real concern.

Vanbullbear looks like feelings were hurt during the creation of this post.

" but markets will impulse and make new highs after the correction. "

based on what? this is my main point ive been trying to get across to you. Why does bitcoin need to reach new heights after each correction? Are they coming up with new technologies, new products or merging to bring in new wealth? There are no fundamental backings ... its a pure pump and dump at the moment. There is no value or purpose to Bitcoin.

MJ can be smoked, its a consumer commodity

I mentioned Fib's because you said it was bullish, when a stock retrenches like that it indicates a change in direction. I used that as a quick indicator to show you the market has moved from a upward trend to a downward trend when you claimed it was "bullish".

yz - No feelings hurt at all, just called it as it is.
A lot of your posts have a condescending tone to it and you make it seem like you know a lot about everything. But looking at your post on Technical analysis, it's quite apparent that you know very little about the subject even though you make it sound like you do. You played with some charts, googled some common indicators but never actually created and applied a TA based system.
This is the real-estate forums what have you got to prove to anyone, who cares if people here think you're smart or not, why try to sound like you know more than you do.

Intrinsic value,while an important component, is not the determining factor of price. As much as the academia would like to push for the efficient market hypothesis it does not work this way in the real world application. Market price is determined by mass psychology, as long as someone is willing to sell and another will willing to buy at price X you have a determined price.

Just look at every commodity, Gold for example. Gold was trading at 1800 USD per ounce during 2011, look 4 years later it's trading at near half price. Could the intrinsic value of gold really decrease by a half over 4 years? look another year further and gold is up 30%. What is gold's true intrinsic value? It's shiny.... it's a descent conductor... but is a bar of gold intrinsically worth $500,000 (by today's prices). What can a bar of gold really do for you? Nothing really.. But the market has determined it's worth as much as a home, therefore it is.

This very example highlights the beauty of Technical Analysis in that I don't need to fundamentally believe in bitcoin, in fact what I think or you think about Bitcoin's intrinsic price has zero effect on the price of bitcoin. The real question is will the masses (the market) believe in it. As long as I see a setup with favorable probability that people will buy it up, I can place a bet with a set amount of risk and make some money (or lose some money as there is always a probability the trade will get stopped out).

Bitcoin has been up nearly 25% since you posted doom and gloom, it looks like it has bottomed - HOWEVER there is always a chance it will dive down - I never know where the market will go with certainty. Nobody knows this, those who say otherwise are either lying or deluding themselves (or have a time machine).
It's funny how markets work FOMO buying and Panic Selling. These provide great opportunities take advantage of irrational - Bulls make money, Bears make money - followers like sheeps and pigs get slaughtered.